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Any Upgrade Options for a Packard Bell PB 8810?

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Smack2k

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I was at a house tonight scoring a ton of old computer equipment and one major thing I grabbed was an in box Packard Bell PB8810 machine. Being an 8088 machine, I dont know a ton about it as I havent owned an 8088 before but I am really really psyched to own it.

Are there any option add-on upgrades (cards / etc) that are available for this? Just lookin to see what's all with it!
 
You could replace the CPU with an NEC V20/V30 which is socket compatible and will give you 80186 instruction set allowing many 286 applications to run (but not all). Might expand VGA card possibilities by allowing some 8 bit slot compatible units who's BIOS has 286 code to work. I have one in my 8086 IBM PS/2 model 25.
 
I want to keep it an 8088 but put in the best I can for that generation..I have an 8086 / 286 / and so on..so want to keep this where it is..

Are there any RAM upgrades that can be used for this machine?

Looking at the list of compatible cards, I have a few, including the Trident, which I will use on it (ITs an 8088, a Trident should be fine) for VGA..so that should be cool.

ONe other thing that i am not really sure of and hoping you can answer here...the 5150 and 5160 were 4.77 MHZ and this PB is 10 MHZ and still an 8088? Was there a wide range of 8088 speeds? If needed, can I slow it down to original PC speed by getting a 4.77 MHZ 8088? Not sure what I can do there, or cant do.

Thanks!
 
Yep, just like many CPUs the 808x series had multiple speeds and pretty much ran fine. Stuff wouldn't act bad unless you were really up there in speed like a 16Mhz V20. But in general not much suffered from the extra CPU boost. It's not like playing an ms basic centipede game from an 8088 on a Pentium and dying in .04 seconds. Most stuff just runs nicer at the higher speeds. That system may also BTW support that ctrl+alt+- and ctrl+alt++ for speed boost vs slow speed mode.
 
IF I were to get an 8087 processor for this, does it have to match the speed and be 10 MHZ?

Curious as I am not 100% sure..

Also, is there a RAM expansion that is possible on board or on a card?

Thanks...
 
Chromedome45 said:
Watch out for Trident VGA. None of the ones I have will work in an 8 bit slot. Maybe just bad luck!?
Click to expand...
I have some that work just fine. Not all do so it pays to check the list on the WIKI page referenced in an earlier post.

Smack2k said:
IF I were to get an 8087 processor for this, does it have to match the speed and be 10 MHZ?

Curious as I am not 100% sure..

Also, is there a RAM expansion that is possible on board or on a card?

Thanks...
Click to expand...
No, it doesn't. Typically FPUs run at slower speeds than the CPU.

How much RAM does it have now? I might have some RAM cards.
 
Some 16-bit VGA cards will do 8-bit also.. Only the first part of the isa bus is inserted in the 8bit slot.. I self using an ATI VGA wonder XL with 512KB memory.. I also can use MDA, CGA, Herculus,EGA, VGA on that same card on a VGA display..
I really cant recommend to go for an CGA or EGA card, because of the limited quantity 9 pin monitors you will find. Because those monitors are hard to find these days.. And i dont really like when such monitor would be dead so i cant use that computer anymore.. So i decided to choose for an VGA monitor instead.. I have 5 or 6 of those card laying here (use them as backup, if one would fail in the future)
 
Stone said:
I have some that work just fine. Not all do so it pays to check the list on the WIKI page referenced in an earlier post.

No, it doesn't. Typically FPUs run at slower speeds than the CPU.

How much RAM does it have now? I might have some RAM cards.
Click to expand...

IT has 640K RAM I am pretty certain...

Also, any speed 8087 would be fine to add then?
 
Stone said:
Typically FPUs run at slower speeds than the CPU.
Click to expand...

That is true on many 286 systems. But on all XT class machines (8088, 8086, V20, V30, etc.) I've seen, the math co-processor runs at the same speed as the CPU. So if you have a "10 MHz" (actually 9.54 MHz) 8088-1 CPU, then you'll need an 8087-1 FPU that is also rated for 10 MHz. In that case, the "-1" suffix is important:

8087 clock speeds
Intel 8087 5 MHz
Intel 8087-1 10 MHz
Intel 8087-2 8 MHz
Intel 8087-3 4 MHz
Intel 8087-6 6 MHz
 
Thanks...will look for that!

Sorry if this is stupid question, but are all 8087-1 procs 10 MHZ? Or are there differences?
 
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